World T20: One statistic that won't amuse Dhoni!

World T20: One statistic that won't amuse Dhoni!

Did you know that Mahendra Singh Dhoni heads the list of most runs without a single half century?

He is followed by South African all-rounder Albie Morkel, Gary Wilson and the prolific Hashim Amla.

He led India to the title in the inaugural World T20.

He is one of the finest finishers in the game. And he is one the best batsman in the shorter formats.

But when it comes to T20 internationals, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is yet to score a fifty.

Surprised?

This happens to be a fact.

Despite featuring in 43 of the 46 matches India has played so far, and aggregating a healthy 772 runs from them, Dhoni is without a half century to his credit. In fact his career aggregate is the most by any batsman without a fifty.

The 48 not out he scored against Australia, in a losing cause in Sydney remains his best score in T20 internationals.

Dhoni was left stranded on 48

Interestingly, during that particular match, Dhoni was batting on 45 after the completion of the penultimate over, but to his utter dismay he found that Ravichandran Ashwin consumed four of the six deliveries.

In the remaining two deliveries, he scored three runs to get to 48 not out as India lost by 31 runs.

India's captain fell short by just two runs, thanks to his Chennai Super Kings teammate.

Dhoni missed out on just three T20 internationals

Dhoni has mainly batted at No 5 or 6 (13 times each) in T20 Internationals, which effectively meant that on most occasions only a few overs were left.

A testimony to that is remaining not out on 16 occasions out of the 40 times that he went in to bat during those 43 games.

The three games that he missed out were when his jaded body needed rest.

He opted out of the 2010 tour of Zimbabwe where India played two T20s under Suresh Raina's captaincy.

The other T20 game that he missed was during India's tour of West Indies in 2011 when he opted out of the limited-overs series (T20's and ODis) having played the World Cup and IPL back-to-back in four months of grueling cricket.

The hero of India's 2007 World T20 and 2011 World Cup triumph, Yuvraj Singh (868 runs) and Suresh Raina (859 runs) are second and third respectively, in the list of highest scorers among Indian batsmen.